Society Wives (17 page)

“So they really don't pay for these television appearances?”

Vonnie wondered why he kept asking. “No, Mike. They don't for the umpteenth time.”

“Okay, okay. I was just asking. It would just be nice if you got paid for it, that's all.”

His concern began to raise suspicion in Vonnie. “Why?”

“No reason,” Mike said and yawned. “I'm exhausted. Night, babe.” He turned his back and fell asleep, cutting their afterglow short.

Vonnie was left up alone, wondering about Mike's sudden concern about money.

Chapter 26

Nadalia

Nadalia was having one of those days. She forgot to set the alarm on her phone and woke up at nine o'clock—the time she should have been walking into the office. She rushed to get dressed and seemed to have been behind every senior citizen driving through Long Island. A commute that should have taken no more than fifteen minutes on a bad day, stretched out to nearly thirty minutes due to detours and road work.

Slamming her fists against the wheel, she cursed the old man in front of her crawling toward the yellow light. “I could have gotten through that damn light five times. Jeez!” Nadalia pulled to a full stop behind him, sat back and groaned. The second the light turned, she laid on her horn. The blaring sound startled the old man. Nadalia could see him jerk and seconds later, he began his crawl once again.

Nadalia slapped her indicator, turning on her left blinker and whipped around the man as soon as she could. She tried to give the old man the evil eye as she passed, but his focus was trained on the road. He was barely tall enough to see over the dashboard and wore glasses as thick as the windshield itself. Nadalia gunned the gas, trying to at least shave off a few minutes of her drawn-out trip to work.

The phone rang and Nadalia pressed the information center on the car's dashboard activating the Bluetooth system. “Yeah,” she said in frustration.

“Hey babe. Are you all right?” Sage's voice filed through the speakers filling the car.

“Why'd you ask?” she inquired even though she already knew the answer. Despite her mood, Nadalia was happy to hear from Sage.

After their epic fail at attempting to make love the other night, things had grown awkwardly distant between them. She'd gone into the bathroom to cry that night while her mind filled with thoughts of why her husband couldn't make love to her anymore. Her ego was battered and her heart was torn.

“You sound irritated.”

“Bad morning. What time did you leave?”

“Around six-thirty. I needed to get in early to prepare for meetings. We've got clients coming in at the end of the week and we need to be ready.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, babe. About our trip—”

“Sage! No! I won't let you cancel on me. Ugh! We need this getaway, Sage! Don't—”

“I'm not canceling on you. Relax.” Sage huffed this time. “I just need for you to email me all the details. I'm working on my schedule and I want to make sure I have that time blocked off. As a matter of fact, send it to Cindy so she can update my calendar.”

“Really, Sage! I have to go through your secretary to secure quality time with my own husband.”

“Dali. It's not like that.”

“Then what's it like?” Nadalia sucked her teeth and swerved around a car that had pulled out into oncoming traffic. “Ugh!” She let the passenger side window down and slowed next to her assailant. “You idiot!”

“Dali!”

“This guy just cut me off,” she grunted. “Listen I'll send the email. Let me call you back when I get to the office.”

“You didn't get there yet?”

“Sage!”

“Okay! Call me back…and don't forget to send the email. I'll forward it to Cindy myself.”

“Whatever!” Nadalia hit the display, releasing the call. She didn't mean to take out her frustration on Sage, but couldn't help herself. The phone rang again. Nadalia muttered under her breath and jabbed her finger on the display. “What?” she groaned.

“Nadalia?”

Immediately she recognized Angela's voice. “Oh. Hey, Angela. Sorry about that.”

“Bad day so far, huh?”

“You can tell?” Nadalia said sarcastically generating a light laugh between the two.

“Damn! I don't think what I have to say will help make it any better.”

“Spit it out, Ang.”

Angela waited a few moments before speaking. Nadalia wheeled into her designated parking spot in front of her office building and switched the audio from the car's Bluetooth system to the phone.

“Nadalia. I think…”

“Just say what you have to say!” she admonished, grabbing her purse and tote, slamming the car door, and taking rapid steps toward the entrance.

“Our husbands are cheating! There are two bimbos out there trying to take our husbands away from us.”

Nadalia froze, almost losing her grip on the phone and the bags in her hand. Air circulated in her chest and she felt it tightening. “What did you say?”

“They are cheating on us.”

“How do you know?” Nadalia turned her back to the door as if she could shield the people inside from hearing her conversation.

“I'm not one hundred percent sure of everything, but there have been a few things that have given me a pretty good indication that something is going on. Coffey has been using Sage as his alibi for all of his frequent trips.”

“What have you found?”

“Hotel receipts. And it's always the same hotel.”

“So! Coffey stays at a certain hotel when he comes here. Sage hangs out with him sometimes.”

“These receipts include night after night of room service. Coffey usually eats out when he comes into town on business. He never stays in his room. So if he's having dinner in his room, he's not there alone.”

“So what makes you think Sage is cheating?” Nadalia asked hoping, that she didn't have any proof involving Sage. She'd already had so many of her own doubts about her husband. “Sage may just be covering for Coffey. You know how those two are.”

“You know how good I am with computers, right?”

“Yeah. So…”

“I found a few email messages talking about them meeting up at that hotel. I checked them against his trips and they show ridiculous charges for his hotel on his company card. The amount that's being charged just doesn't jive with business trips and regular business expenses.”

To Nadalia, this didn't sound like much of anything. Angela was clearly overreacting to her speculations. “Angela.”

“Don't patronize me, Nadalia. I know you don't think I have much, but I know what I'm talking about. Because I know my husband and something isn't right. And you may not want to believe it, but I also know that Sage is in on it.”

Nadalia grunted. “Okay, Angela, but I can't approach Sage with any of this without some kind of proof. I need more than what you've said.”

“You want proof? Check your messages in ten minutes and then call me back.”

Nadalia rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

Angela ended the call.

Nadalia shook her head, straightened her posture and headed into the building. When she got to her floor, she waltzed through the office with a no-nonsense scowl on her face. She could sense the atmosphere become tense. She nodded in response to several “G'mornings” from her employees and from their wide eye stares, she knew that her staff would be walking on egg shells.

Stepping into her office, Nadalia pushed the door closed and locked it, before tossing her coat and bags onto the sofa. She walked to the windowed wall and looked out. Her phone dinged, indicating that she had a text. Right after that, the phone chimed several more times. She knew it was Angela, but she wasn't ready to see what she called proof.

What if her accusations were true? Nadalia put her hand across her mouth to muffle her cry. She swallowed, threw her head back, shook her hair and got herself together. She couldn't break down here. Not yet. She hadn't even seen the so called proof. Sage may not even be guilty.

But when she thought about the fact that she hadn't had sex with her husband in months, how distant they had become, all the nights that she waited for him to get home when he claimed he was working late, and then, thought back to that disheartening attempt the other night, she was already starting to believe it was true.

Nadalia wiped the tears, marched to her office door and pulled it open just enough to bark out an order. “Kim, I need a latte.” She shut the door without waiting for an answer and then sat at her custom designed glass desk. She pictured the staff outside of her door scurrying and whispering, wondering what could have gotten her so upset.

Nadalia powered on her computer, but instead of working, she opened up Facebook and sifted through her timeline. Then she opened her emails and skimmed the subjects, but she didn't really pay attention. Looking at her phone, she sighed again. She wanted to see the text, but she was afraid.

The cell phone dinged again. Nadalia grabbed it, held it tightly in her hands and looked at the ceiling. She put it back down, deciding to wait for her coffee before she faced whatever was there. She couldn't take bad news on an empty stomach, but then again, her stomach was churning and she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep any food down. The coffee would have to do.

Finally she heard a light tapping at her door. Nadalia opened it, trying to look as professional as possible. Through a narrow crack, Kim handed Nadalia a venti latte from the Starbucks in the lobby. Nadalia pushed the door closed and locked it again. She leaned against the wall and sipped, closing her eyes as the hot strong drink eased down her pipes. Nadalia sipped all the way back to her desk and then picked up her phone.

Taking a deep breath, she touched the message icon. Angela had included three images as well and the last message just said ‘hello' with a question mark. The phone chimed again with a message. “
Call me back already.”

The first image was of a text exchange between Sage and Coffey about how crazy last night was. Nadalia figured they went to a strip club. That's what men do. She wasn't mad at that. It was the next two messages that set off her alarm. One about them setting up a time and date for round two and next was an exchange between the two where Coffey had texted, “That was some next level shit! This weekend is going to be off the hook.”

Nadalia dropped her head. The phone rang and she jabbed the screen.

“Yeah.”

“Now do you believe me?”

“How did you get that stuff?”

“Did you forget? I majored in computer engineering. I still dabble to stay abreast of new technologies.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Nadalia's voice was despondent.

“There is definitely something going on and I'm not going to lose my husband to some trick. We need to do something.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Coffey is supposed to be heading back to New York by the end of this week.”

“So come with him!” Nadalia perked up.

“No! That won't work.” Nadalia frowned as Angela continued, “If I come, they will probably cancel their plans. He can't know I'm coming.” After a few moments of silence. Angela's voice boomed on the lined, sounding renewed. “I know. I'll send the kids to my mother's for the weekend. I'll come and you meet me at the airport. They will probably be at the same hotel and we can catch them with the whores.”

“That could work, but how do you know something will go down this weekend?”

“If Sage tells you he's working this weekend or meeting up with Coffey, we'll know.”

“Okay.” Nadalia prayed that Angela was wrong. “If Sage says anything suspicious, I'll let you know so you can make your arrangements. It's been a while, so it will be good to see you. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Me too.” Sadness rang out in Angela's tone and for several moments the only sound on the line were the women breathing.

“Nadalia.” Angela's voice sounded small.

“What's up?” she replied, fighting the urge to cry.

“I'm sorry, too.”

“We aren't going down without a fight.”

“No…we're not. G'bye Angela. I'll call you when I have something.” Nadalia ended the call, buried her head in her hands and cried again.

After a little while, Nadalia stood, refusing to sit around crying prematurely. She walked back to the window and thought of how she could get the answers she wanted. Trotting back to her desk, she picked up her phone and called Sage.

“Hey, babe!” She tried her best to sound cheerful. “Sorry about earlier. My day started out crazy.”

“Sounds like you're feeling better.”

“A little.”

“Good!”

“Listen, babe! I was thinking that we could check out that new Greek restaurant this Friday or Saturday. Work has been crazy for both of us and I think a nice date would do us both some good.”

“Sounds good.”

Nadalia smiled, relived. “Okay. I'll make reservations.”

“No, I can't!”

“What!” Her heart rate quickened and a tight ball formed in her stomach.

“Can't do this weekend. Coffey's coming in and we have to meet with clients Friday evening. I probably won't be in until late and I'll have to head back out early Saturday morning. This new venture looks like it's really going to happen, but we have to play our cards right. We are starting with breakfast and want to show them around New York, then, get this deal sealed. Wish me luck.”

Nadalia sat in slow motion, afraid that her shaky legs would give out. She bit her bottom lip.

“Babe…babe.”

She heard Sage calling out to her through the phone, but she didn't answer. She'd rather let him think the cell phone malfunctioned. When it was clear that he'd hung up, she turned the phone off, just in case he called back.